


I do feel on my very own

by whynotcherries



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Car Accidents, Emma Swan Needs A Hug, F/M, Foster Care, Gen, Like only angst, because who sticks to canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 11:33:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30071601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whynotcherries/pseuds/whynotcherries
Summary: "All I know is that for my whole life, I've been alone."5 times Emma Swan was alone and 1 time she wasn't.
Relationships: Baelfire | Neal Cassidy/Emma Swan
Kudos: 5





	I do feel on my very own

**Author's Note:**

> I have never done a 5+1 before so I thought I would _attempt it_ , also I wrote this in like an hour without any sort of editing so please forgive me if it sucks or if it's filled with mistakes.

1.

She just ran away from her second home in three days.

 _It shouldn’t be this hard to find someone that wants to care_ , she thinks. 

There wasn’t anything particularly wrong with this home--the parents were nice, the mom (she thinks her name was Candace) made good cookies--but they didn’t seem interested. Not in her, at least. The three year old who got there the day before she did, though…

Maybe it’s her. She’s older than most kids are when they’re adopted, and she’s been sent back more than anyone she’s met before. It’s probably her.

She’s found her way to a park after a few hours of walking and she finds a nice bench to sit on. Well, nice as in it’s not covered in bird poop. It counts for something, she supposes. 

It’s not long before a woman comes up to her with her own kid. The boy is maybe five years old and he could not be less interested in her.

“Are you okay?”

Emma nods, not necessarily because it’s true, but because any other answer would get her sent to a police station waiting for a social worker to show up. Again.

“Are you sure, sweetie? Where’s your mom?”

She points at some stranger who has their back turned. The woman _interrogating her_ turns to see who it is that she’s pointing at and then nods, “Oh, okay. Good,” she says, and she walks away.

2\. 

She’s sitting in the dark of the new room she was given at the new home with these new people. She’s gotten yelled at more times than she can count today, only once for a good reason--which, you know, fair. You’re not supposed to threaten to bite people, especially not toddlers, but this one had it coming.

So she’s started her next plan. She’d leave tomorrow night, out that window in the downstairs bathroom with a flimsy lock. It’s not her best plan, but she shouldn’t have _any_ plans.

She’s twelve and she should be going to school tomorrow, not planning to climb out a window of a house in the suburbs. It’s maybe worse that it’s the suburbs right outside of Minneapolis, which she realized yesterday is _huge_. 

Maybe it’s not, though. Maybe she’s just small.

She wonders if maybe she’d feel less little if she had a mom. She wonders if she ever even _had_ a mom.

Of course, she’s not an idiot and it’s not possible to have _never_ had a mom, but it feels a little like she just fell onto earth one day. Maybe she’s an alien--that would explain some of the weird looks she’d get when she was in the grocery store on her own.

Maybe that was just because she was so small and she was alone.

3\. 

She’s been at this school for a few months, despite having been to homes all around the city in that time.

She hasn’t made many real friends--really, why would she want to, after the _last_ friend she made.

Well, maybe friends aren’t supposed to lie to you and get you put back in the system. That’s probably why. But either way, she doesn’t think she’ll ever have a friend again. She doesn’t _want_ to ever have a friend again.

So when this boy starts talking to her one day--she thinks his name is Matt, but she’s never met him before, really, she’s just seen him in the halls--she tries to avoid him.

She actually succeeds, until one day when she’s doodling and he turns around in his seat in chemistry to look at it and compliment her, and his eyes look softer than they have when she’s seen them before so she has to answer.

They talk for a while, and then he starts waiting for her at her locker to walk to class with her, and then one day he grabs her hand and holds it unti they get to their desks. One day he kisses her outside before they get on the bus.

Then the next week there’s another girl she sees him walking with--not even that close to her, just enough that they’re clearly going to the same place--and she starts to skip her locker before class and not answer when he turns around in his chair anymore. 

Eventually she leaves that school, too, and she never sees him again.

4\. 

She doesn’t know how she’s going to explain why she was driving their car at two in the morning to these parents. 

They were nice and she was _stupid_ and made the mistake of sneaking out--with their car, mind you-- and ended up with the front end of it in a ditch and the back end of it so banged up from getting slammed into at midnight in the rain that she doesn’t think it’ll probably ever be fixed properly. 

The car is still mostly intact, thank god for that, but there was no way she would have been able to drive away from _that_ wreck. 

Her hands were still shaking as she sat in the emergency room. She hadn’t even been that hurt, she could’ve probably snuck away if she wanted to, but she didn’t want to leave this family without any sort of goodbye. They’d been good to her, and they’d seemed like they might have been looking towards adoption.

Well, before _this_ incident, at least.

They show up and she gets yelled at, which isn’t surprising--she did just wreck their car beyond repair--but they haven’t yelled at her yet, or even scolded her, really, and it throws her for a loop.

They send her off with a cop that night, and even though they look sorry about it, it doesn’t make her feel any better afterward.

5\. 

She’s not sure what it was that made her realize that she was by herself again.

It could’ve been the way he looked at her that was so _impossible_ before he left, or the way he seemed just a little bit too unwilling to let her help until he wasn’t. Or maybe it was that the officer told her that he’d turned her in.

If that wasn’t a punch in the face, she didn’t know what was.

Talk about insuring your plans, though. He really could’ve just left and never talked to her again--that would’ve been better, really. It could’ve been that he wanted her to be someplace with food and a roof or whatever, but really, _prison?_

The officers at the desk seem to feel a little bad for her since they’re leaving her alone. She can see them glancing at her every few seconds, clearly talking about her, but at least they’re not talking _to_ her.

One charge is enough for tonight, thank you, and she isn’t sure she’d be able to refrain from hitting either of them if they started trying to converse. Well, either hitting them or crying, and she’s not sure which one is worse.

She sits there for hours and hours until another officer comes and takes her to a courtroom, and she’s not sure that she remembers what the lawyer said besides to just agree with everything, so she does.

They say something about eleven months, and all she can think is _wow, that’s longer than I’ve ever been anywhere before_ , and she’s being led out to a car and into another, bigger building. 

_So much for home._

+1

She practically threw the door closed as she got back in the car. She wasn’t expecting Neal to still be here--hell, she told him _not_ to be here--and there he was, sitting in the passenger seat like an insolent little _bastard_.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, practically slamming the keys into the ignition, which, _ouch to the car,_ really.

“I’m sitting. And waiting for you.”

“Why?”

“Well, it’s not like Granny’s has a great number of _friends_ hanging around, and I’m lonely.” 

“And? I am too, you don’t see me just chilling in your room,” she starts backing out, because really, if he insists on following her places, she may as well keep up with her own plans.

“I never said you couldn’t,” he says, reaching behind him to buckle, “and either way, I think you still enjoy my company at least a little bit.”

She nods, “I enjoy it plenty. Just not when I’m trying to kill monsters. Or when I’m trying to make sure Regina doesn’t turn _into_ a monster.” 

He sighs, “Aren’t we past that point with her?” 

She reaches over and smacks his arm, “We are trying to keep her _somewhat_ sane. Please do not make it harder.” 

He chuckles, leaning back in his chair. “Got it,” he says, pointing at the sign for the bakery, “can we get coffee on the way, though? If I need to be on my best behavior, I require caffeine.”

She shakes her head, smiling despite the _annoyance_ she feels--or tries to tell herself she feels. “You’re paying,” she declares, pulling into the parking spaces.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”


End file.
